Palm Computers:
Hardware, Software, and Use

Palm Computers

Many people don't know exactly what the Palm Craze is. They
think of the first generation of handheld devices -- that old address book and
schedule. Those devices couldn't hardly sync with anything a normal person would
use. They were tiny and expensive and who could remember which batteries to use?
Those days are long past, and the Palm Craze is in full swing because the
devices out there now will enable a person to have all of her addresses,
appointments, email, word processing documents, spreadsheets, databases, and
genealogy conclusions in something that will fit into a pocket.

It seems to me that genealogists are not the earliest
adopters of new tools. Palms are fitting the profile. I gave a lecture on this
topic in January 2000 at the GENTECH conference in San Diego. There were about
eight people in the room who were carrying some kind of a palm device. That's
changing rapidly. By the time that we got to Providence in May, slow guys like
Tony Burroughs and I had them too. Tony will lecture on the topic at the GENTECH
conference in February 2001. This is an important sign, meaning one of two
things: either the end of civilization is precisely on schedule, or palms are
going mainstream.

Personal Digital Assistants (“PDAs”) are hand held
electronic devices used for storing and retrieving information. They can be
divided into 3 groups based on the operating system they run: Windows CE, Palm
OS, and everything else. This article is about the PDAs that run the Palm OS.
Palm Computers can be divided into three groups based on the manufacturer– The Palm Pilots from Palm, the Visors from Handspring, and everything
else.

Palm presently makes three models: the III, V, and VII. The
III and the VII are a lot alike in size and shape, but the VII has a built in
modem. The V is a lot thinner and has a built in battery. Everyone I've met
likes her own model the best, so there's something to say for them all. They
come with varying amounts of memory. I like to have a lot because I want to try
everything on mine, but some people are happy with the 2MB models. The III also
comes in color. Soon there won't be any monochrome ones. I think that battery
life is the biggest limiting factor and somebody is doing a good job on that
problem without my help.

The Handspring guys are former Palm guys that left to try
something different. The biggest difference in the products is that the
Handspring Visor has an expansion slot where a person can plug in third-party
devices such as memory expansions, modems, GPS devices, and the like. In
general, there's a big price savings on the models with 8 MB of RAM compared to
the Palms. The Handspring devices are running the same Palm OS as the Palm
devices.

IBM recently announced a hard drive holding a gigabyte that
will fit into a palm. A gigabyte, contrary to anything you may have heard, is
really big.

Sony will be making a Palm device soon, and Palm itself
will soon offer an expansion slot. No two manufacturers are talking about using
the same expansion slot, so they're still playing the game at the level where
they claim all the territory they can and try to lock up customers for a long
time. Think of these devices like you do other electronic devices - they're
completely disposable, the price will go way down the day after you buy yours,
and in a few years you'll be embarrassed to show yours to the other guys.

Palm Culture

Let's face it, people shouldn't get these things for the
fun of it. They should offer some functionality that helps them do something
better, cheaper, and faster. Life is a constant set of experiments to find
better ways to deal with the same challenges, over and over. The Palm Craze is
just a normal manifestation of several million people looking for a better way
to keep track of things that they can't remember, and to connect with others.
That lab work can be very lonely, and as the weeks go by, Palm People are coming
out of the back rooms and connecting with each other, comparing their lab notes
and adjusting their schemes.

There are Palm User groups all over the country. I was at
one last week in Arlington TX. It reminded me of the AA meetings I've seen on
TV. "Hi, I'm Dave and I'm a Palm-aholic." It's a frantic phenomenon
and many people are uncomfortable revealing their enthusiasm for this activity
in public. In addition to the face-to-face meetings, there are several really
good palm websites and a newsgroup (comp.sys.palmtops.pilot).

I'm a great admirer of Cyndi Howells. You know Cyndi; she
has more links than Imelda Marcos has shoes. She's the Contessa of Cyberspace,
the principesa of TCP/IP, the keeper of the greatest card catalog in the
greatest virtual genealogy library the world has ever seen. She is one of the
most generous and friendly souls I've ever met. When I told her that I was
getting a Palm Pilot, she did what only Cyndi does so well. She sent me some
links.

Oh, and I'll get into this in the section on Palm Use, but
Palm People have a completely different meaning for the phrase
"beaming." Once you've done it, you'll never want to go back.

Palm Peripherals

A recent announcement from Palm Inc shows that it plans to
introduce a new model with an expansion slot like the one for the Visor. Just
about any device you buy can attach to a desktop computer with a "hot-sync
cradle." They all come with a built-in or add-on modem. I find it quite
convenient, on short trips, to take my Palm instead of a laptop. I can check and
send email from just about anywhere.

Palm modems can be used with some cell phones. The manuals
are fairly specific about which makes and models will work and I don't have the
right cell phone for this activity yet. I liked plugging into a pay phone in
O’Hare airport to check my mail during a layover. It's not really fast, but
it's very convenient to carry and set up.

Writing on a palm screen, or tapping on the tiny keys on
the screen, can be tiresome for a long message or document. Palm makes a
keyboard that folds into four sections and will fit into a really big pocket.
It's like having a laptop keyboard on a Palm, and works great on planes and
conference room tables. If you type really fast, you'll want one for anything
more than a few words of notes.

I don't have a GPS, but that's a very popular device to add
to a Palm. There are also Palm cameras. Kodak makes one that's under $150 and
isn't a bad digital camera. If you're big on pictures, you'll want a color palm
- the monochrome ones don't show color images. They'll store and print them
though.

All Palms have an infrared port, which can be used for
"beaming" information to another palm, an IR capable printer, or any
other IR capable device. I remember standing in the lobby before my old college
buddy's daughter's dance recital, beaming addresses back and forth. "Hey,
do you have Brian? Here it is. You want my parents?" More about beaming
later.

In summary, Palms are like a lot of things where the
accessories can really add up. I'd recommend a modem and a keyboard at a
minimum, and suggest that you decide about the rest based on how easily you can
get someone else to pay for it.

Palm Genealogy Software

Palm Software is still a cottage industry. There are not
three to six producers, there are a bazillion. It’s a challenge to tell the
brother-in-law software from the real thing. I often say that mainframe software
is $3,000, PC software is $300, and Palm software is $30.There is a lot of inexpensive software available and it's hard to know
what you'll get before you buy it. As a result, there is a lot of shareware and
demoware on the Internet for palms. If you buy shareware it's basically under
the honor system. If you continue to use it, you are legally obligated to pay
for it. Those developers don't get much money and it really hurts them if
someone steals their products.

Palm Genealogy software has two basic features: it reads
GEDCOM files from your PC and it's not really good for storing research. It's
pretty good for storing conclusions. I don't recommend trying to enter changes
on a palm and then sync them with your normal research program later. I
recommend carrying your conclusions for lookups, and entering your research as
text, or digitizing it with a camera. I have tried two programs. I’m going to
show you some examples from GedPalm and My Roots. There are many other programs
out there, and they change rapidly. This is just a snapshot and I don’t think
that things will sit still for long. The feature sets and products change too
quickly.

GedPalm

I think
that GedPalm is a very simple program. I have version 3.0.1.It's from GHCS Software, found on the web at www.ghcssoftware.com. When I
say that it's simple I don't mean that it isn't good. I think it's a terrific
program for certain kinds of information.

I want to point out the
DATABASES screen first, because you can see a couple of interesting things.
First, it can handle a 4261 record GEDCOM file just fine. Second, it says
"Beam" at the bottom. Yes, you can beam a GedPalm file to another
GedPalm user. It takes GEDCOM files from the PC, so you can send it a filtered
GEDCOM, say, only your Propes family, and it will let you look them up pretty
easily.

Figure 2.
GedPalm Options

The options are useful - you can look at the names in your
GedPalm database in one of the four orders shown. I use Names all the time.

Figure 3.
GedPalm List

The GedPalm list shows the
names of the people in the database, and the years when they were born. You can
search by the first letter of the last name. It would be nice if you could keep
typing letters and have it specify the search, but when you type the second
letter, it jumps to names that start with that one.

Figure 4. GedPalm group sheet view

The thing I'm usually after when I get to this point is the
family group sheet, and here's how it looks in GedPalm. The P in a circle is a
button that takes you to the group sheet for that person's parents. Other than
the ability to make a note about each person, that's about all I could do with
GedPalm. At that, it's quite useful. I've found myself in libraries wondering if
the Donald Propes I'm finding a record for is one that I have. I can tell a lot
from this program, and it's worth having in your palm if you have the storage
space.

My Roots

My Roots version 1.50 from Tapperware is a very different
program from GedPalm. Written by Thomas Ward, it can be found at www.palmgear.com.

When you start My Roots, you see a name list, with name,
birth year, and death year displayed. If you type a letter, you will jump to the
list for people whose last names start with that letter. Type another letter,
you get other people with THAT first letter.

My Roots allows you to "categorize" people in
your file, one category per person. I can make some people Sharbroughs, some
people Propeses, and the great unwashed are Unfiled. You can filter the display
by category, so you can just see the people you've flagged as Propes, for
example.

The group sheet in My Roots shows a number of events that
you don’t see in GedPalm. If you click on event you'll see a number of event
types. You can group the event types and then just see a particular group, such
as legal events, LDS events, or common events.

While viewing the sheet for a given person, you can display
their ancestors or a tree of their descendants. You can have more than 50 in a
tree, and more than 2500 people in a file, at present. While viewing the tree of
ancestors or descendants, you can tap one and they become the focus of the tree.

Other Palm Software for Genealogists

It is my opinion that genealogists will get more
non-genealogy use from a palm than genealogy use. That's because you can sync it
with the normal components of your office suite. For documents I use SmartDoc (I
have to use PalmDoc to convert them from Word format for download) and it allows
me to read and change documents that get updated the next time I hot-sync. I use
QuickSheet to do the same with Excel worksheets. I use ThinkDB to read MSAccess
databases.

My email, addresses, and appointments link up because I
have the Franklin Covey Outlook program. The email would link up in basic Palm
software but I prefer the Franklin Covey program. If I write emails on my palm
pilot, the next time I hot sync, they are uploaded to Outlook and placed in my
mailbox.

If I'm not in town, I use a program called HandMail to send
and receive email straight to and from my POP3 mailbox. The palm also features a
version of ICQ, AIM, Proxiweb for browsing the web, and my favorite web feature:
AvantGo.Com. When you hot sync, web content formatted for the palm is
automatically downloaded for reading later. I always get the movie listings near
my home from hollywood.com, the Economist editorials, the New York Times and USA
Today. I also get the Fort Wayne News@Sentinel
because I want to see if Curt Witcher is on the front page. I have fun asking
Curt about current events, but the real power of AvantGo is that you get your
content from anywhere in the world and you can travel without missing the local
news.

I can also get MapQuest driving directions loaded into my
palm when I hotsync, via AvantGo. If I don't have to give a PowerPoint
presentation on a trip, I can take my Palm and do everything I want to do.

Palm Use

Now that you know a little about what hardware and software
you might use with a palm computer, I'd like to close by talking about how it
can be used. Of course the availability of vast amounts of storage changes
things. Palms have historically been the last bastion of tight code. Kiss that
goodbye. But what you'll see in exchange is a lot more information than you’ve
ever had before. They'll all be color and wireless soon. I'd love to use mine to
unlock my house and car.

Some people beam rude comments about others in meetings.
This should be discouraged - everyone can read it! Still, beaming is a great
capability for genealogists to share information whether it's on the web, in a
word processing document, or in a spreadsheet.

I suspect that people will not keep using desktop PCs much
longer. Soon you'll just connect your Palm to a big monitor and printer and keep
running. If that happens, a lot fewer people will need Win03 on their systems
(assuming that Windows 2003 is ever shipped).

The day when a Palm Pilot is the only computer that a
genealogist will need is not far away. The Palm Craze has not really begun in
earnest. Someday, we'll all be Palm People.